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Deeper Possibilities

Day 231 – Being present means letting go of all that is in front of us and all that is behind us. Letting go means being present. Thus, meditation seems a conundrum. “Light and shadow,” Rolf writes, “the one thing that comes to us as two.” The superficial back line that opens as we do downward dog, and which runs from our bottom of our feet up over the crown of our head to our brow, and the superficial front line, which opens in upward dog, and which runs from the top of our feet to our sternoccleidomastoids, are the topic of our today’s discussion. These two postures offer the deepest expression of each line of connective tissue (i.e., energy).

Rolf describes how opening and manipulating these lines within ourselves gives us “deeper possibilities” within our practice. In this way, I recently have approached meditation. In Meditation on Intention and Being (Day 17), Rolf describes his first attempts at yoga as “a sport to master.” As he struggled with injury, disconnection, and emotional upheaval, he begen to look at yoga poses in a different light. He writes that maybe yoga postures “weren’t an athletic way to achieve health; maybe their were an invitation to be in our bodies in an entirely new way, completely outside of the competitive win-lose dualistic narrative we live in.” Win and lose. The one thing that comes to us as two. There are, indeed, “deeper possibilities” always within our practice.

In order to practice yoga (or any endeavor) without harming my body, mind, and spirit, I have to embrace the “deeper possibilities” from the light and shadow to the all-in-front-of-me and all-behind-me, to the win-lose and cultural norm of violence in all things. I give these things space, but also need to let them go. Rolf writes of yoga asana as a “way to end the habit of violence, starting with the violence we do to our bodies.” As I meditated last night, I connected to my breath (all behind me and all in front of me). As I practiced a light asana sequence for stress this morning, I connected to the sweep of the long lines of connective tissue within my body. My mind emptied of ta-do’s and not-done’s and, indeed, “deeper possibilities” manifest.